The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, has accused the Department of Education of “a determined and doctrinaire” attack on Protestant schools.

Referring to the Government’s decision after last year’s Budget to remove ancillary funding from voluntary Protestant secondary schools, Archbishop Neill said that it was his “distinct impression that the re-classification of the Protestant schools was not driven by financial considerations”.

He added that the cuts threatened to “wipe out a whole sector” of the Irish education sector.

The Archbishop also accused the Department of Education of striking at “a sector which some officials totally failed to understand”.

Previous governments of whatever political stripe, “understood and treated these schools in a fair manner” he added. The same could not be said of the present Fianna Fáil / Green Party coalition, Archbishop Neill said.

Education provision for minority communities would always have to be different, he acknowledged.

It was only now “that what was once seen as realism in relation to different and complex situations is being described simply as ‘an anomaly’,” Archbishop Neill added.

He continued: “Furthermore religious communities, be they Roman Catholic or Protestant, have made and continue to make a huge contribution to the provision of education.

“The State has been dependent on that contribution down the generations and still is to a large extent.”

However, Archbishop Neill said that widespread dependence on schools of the majority religious ethos required that alternatives were catered for.

Minorities were as entitled to schools under their own patronage as much as were the majority, he added. He expressed the appreciation of the Church of Ireland for the support of the Roman Catholic sector in defending Protestant schools.

Archbishop Neill pointed out that the Protestant community in Ireland was very mixed, ranging right across the sociological spectrum and in terms of income.

“This attempt by the Minister to place all Protestants into a category of privilege – suggesting that they have chosen private education is manifestly unjust,” he added.

Concluding on the topic, the Archbishop said that he was not objecting to cuts in principle “so long as such cuts are fair and just, and not simply to wipe out a whole sector”.